MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Former Salvadoran President Funes dies in his Nicaraguan exile

As a journalist, Funes interviewed world leaders such as Felipe González, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

Former Salvadoran President Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena, better known as Mauricio Funes, died Tuesday local time in exile in Nicaragua where Daniel Ortega's Sandinista regime had granted him citizenship, the Health Ministry announced in a statement.

”The Ministry of Health of the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of the Republic of Nicaragua, by this means, complies with informing that, unfortunately, the patient citizen Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena, former president of El Salvador, with residence in our country, has died tonight, at 21:35 hours (03:45 GMT Wednesday), as a result of his serious chronic ailment,” the document read. Funes was given his last rites by Nicaraguan priest Antonio Castro Granados, it was also reported.

Meanwhile, Funes' far-left Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) political party in El Salvador also released a communiqué attesting to the organization's “dismay” over Funes' passing.

In addition, the deceased's family published a posthumous message on his X account: “In these difficult moments for my family and myself, I only ask God that his will be done. I ask for your prayers, but if the time has come for me to leave, I know that I served my country with honor and loyalty. It was my greatest honor and privilege to serve my country.” Both the message and the account were eventually deleted.

Funes was wanted by El Salvador's judiciary over some pending issues such as embezzlement, illicit enrichment, and bribery. He arrived in Nicaragua in 2016 after being sentenced in absentia to 14 years in prison for crimes regarding a truce agreed between gangs during his term in office between 2012 and 2014. He was also found to have diverted some US$ 292 million worth of public funds to eight private bank accounts. Funes and his son Diego Roberto Funes Cañas, who had been residing in Nicaragua since September 2016 as fugitives, were on the Nicaraguan Government's monthly payroll. The entire Funes family took up Nicaraguan citizenship given the Constitutional ban on extraditing Nicaraguan nationals.

Born in San Salvador on Oct. 18, 1959, Funes worked as a journalist for over 20 years. The FMLN picked him as its presidential candidate on Nov. 11, 2007, 18 years after the organization's last guerrilla attack, given his public aura and lack of a fighting past.

Funes is remembered in El Salvador, among other things, for easing the detention conditions of criminal gang leaders who were transferred from maximum security prisons to other facilities where they had access to cell phones and conjugal visits, among other privileges later repealed under current President Nayib Bukele.

The former President's career as a journalist included one-on-one interviews with Felipe González, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He worked as a correspondent for CNN between 1991 and 2007.